KOTA KINABALU: People need to speak up and show their solidarity with whistleblowers to end the corrupt practices in the education sector.
Corruption, according to Firdaus Husni, the Human Rights strategy head for Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights, is not just materialistic elements but also in the form of protecting offenders from actions being taken against them.
She said the community should change their mindsets in terms of tolerating wrongdoings in the system.
"While the people in Malaysia are generally known to be peace-loving, we should not tolerate corrupt practices in the education.
"We should speak up, as (such corrupt practices) will not only affect a person, but their entire generation," she said in a forum organised by Tiada Guru on "Ending Corruption in Education Together with People's Solidarity."
She said parents had to be "in the know" of what is happening to their children in schools as there had been many cases such as teachers' absenteesim, sexual harassment and other issues, which are detrimental to the students.
Firdaus said by putting public pressure, either through the public or media, the education institution would be more accountable in carrying out their duty diligently.
Tiada Guru is a group of activists comprising students, parents and teachers, aimed at pressuring the government to address extreme teacher absenteeism in Sabah.
A campaign was launched following a case involving former Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Taun Gasi student Siti Nafirah Siman who sued her Form 4 English teacher Jainal Jamran in 2018 for allegedly failing to show up for seven months of classes.
Tiada Guru representative Fiqah Roslan said the corrupt practices in the education system had become "cancerous", affecting the students' future and the entire institution.
"Corruption practices at all levels could happen in education whereby the officers and administrative personnel are protecting the wrongdoings of their staff by not taking any actions.
"Such a culture of concealing mistakes for the sake of reputation has become a norm. For example, instead of actions being taken against the staff, the offender is merely being transferred to other schools," she said.
Fiqah added that due to such culture, whistleblowing would not be something that one would consider out of fear actions would be taken against them for wanting to correct what is wrong.
She also suggested the trust deficit towards the government system including the enforcement agencies would discourage people from coming forward to fight against corruption.
Apart from the protection to be given to whistleblowers, Fiqah also encouraged the public to show their solidarity by giving their support towards those people, including from marginalised or low income society, who had been brave to come forward to correct the system.